So Haymitch, what do you think of the games have one hundred percent more competitors than usual?” asks Caesar. Haymitch shrugs. “I don’t see that it makes that much difference. They’ll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same.

They don't own me. If I'm gonna die, I wanna still be me.

I drink in his wholeness, the soudness of his body and mind. It runs through me like the morphling they give me in the hospital, dulling the pain of the last weeks.

Because I'm selfish. I'm a coward. I'm the kind of girl who, when she might actually be of use, would run to stay alive and leave those who couldn't follow to suffer and die.

Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem," he says.

I don't write about adolescence. I write about war. For adolescents.

Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He'll love that.